Happy New Year!!!

I hope everyone has a happy and prosperous 2006!!

Check out CNN for celebration pictures from around the globe.

There is also the MSNBC version of the new year excitement.

You can also view the Fox News stories.

Sources

Glencoe Online has lots of sources for teachers to use in their classrooms. These include instruction, testing, parental involvement, etc. This page is loaded.

Field Trips

Would you like to take a field trip while never leaving your classroom? You can do so here.

Online Courses

Cnet.com has some online courses you may be interested in taking. You can take some free online courses or you can order CD tutorials. Either way, check it out at Cnet.

Too Much Time On My Hands

What are YOU going to do with your extra second of time on New Year's Eve? You know the buzz...New Year's will be arriving a second later this year. Why you say and what's the big deal? Well, it seems that sometimes clock time and sun time get out of step with each other. This extra second helps all of that fall into place. Why bother? Well, imagine what would happen as those seconds added up "over time." There's even a wiki article on the leap second.

Link to Article

If you want to get really technical about it you can read the Navy article on the subject.

Enjoy your extra time off before going back to work!!!

:-)

It's Got the "Cool Factor"

The Sony Walkman has been named the best gadget in 50 years, with the iPod coming in second. Hard to believe it was $200 when it was first introduced.

Link to Article

More on Global Warming

From all of the articles I have read recently it looks like the permafrost in North America is in for a thaw. Some areas could thaw several meters deep by the middle of the century. Pipelines could be in danger from landslides.

Link to Article

Annoying Pests to Say the Least

I frequently hear complaints from people about their computer being very slow. Many times this is caused by spyware "infecting" their machine. I commonly ask the question "what have you been downloading?" The response is always the same, "I haven't downloaded anything!" LOL....uh-huh. Seriously, though, many times users don't realize what they've done. Have you ever gone to a search page suddenly and were asked a question in a popup window? You probably just answered "yes" thinking you were doing something correct. And now your home page is no longer www.google.com or whatever you used. Look for a popup question such as this:



Now, this example is just something simple. I used the edit page of my blog to give me this question, but do you ever remember something similar coming up on your screen? If so, you more than likely clicked on "yes" and the next time you opened your browser window your home page was different. This could have been the culprit. ALWAYS READ BEFORE YOU CLICK.

Many times a Web page will contain a question that is nothing more than a link connecting you to a page in order to download something. Beware of these kinds of graphics. They may even have the X in the corner where we are used to clicking to close the window. Kids are notorious for falling for this one and clicking on the X. The program could install without you even realizing it. Ever heard of a "drive-by downloading?" I'm serious.

I use a free program called "Spybot Search and Destroy" to look for spyware. It's available here. Allow this program to scan your machine for spyware and allow it to clean the machine. When the program finishes cleaning your machine it may state that some programs were running and do you wish to run Spybot on a restart. This is because some spyware programs run in the memory and can't be uninstalled while they are running. If you run Spybot on a restart they haven't been loaded yet.


Image from Safer-Networking

Try using this program and see if it helps with your problem. If you still have problems with spyware, you might want to check into Spyware Blaster to help prevent them. It is also free and available at Javacool Software.

SAT Practice

Want to help your students practice for the SAT? At collegeboard.com you can answer the SAT Question of the Day. You can also download and print a practice SAT exam.

SAT Student Site

Podcasting

I've had a few questions about podcasting, so I am going to look up some resources for you and add them here. In the meantime, I have found a resource on about.com that may give you enough information to get you started.

Podcast Tutorial

Can you believe this??!?

This article is a year old, but I just discovered it as I was surfing around today. This is unreal. Click below for the article.

"Brain" is taught to fly fighter jets

Merry Christmas!

May you have a joyous Christmas season!

More for you graduate school folks...

This is a site on pbs.org that has links to research on educational technology issues. You might find it useful if you're working on papers in some of your graduate classes, or you could use it for proof of reasons to buy educational software. Since we all have to use research-based programs due to NCLB, this page may be a good place to start to get information. There are several different topics available to get you going.

The Teacher Source

For all you folks in graduate school...

Google just keeps getting better and better. Looking for resources to help you in your research? Look no further than Google's beta version of Google Scholar. It has a great help page, too.

Google Scholar

Yet Another...

The Internet never seems to amaze me. I spend a majority of every evening online surfing around, reading news feeds, searching for nothing particular, just to see what's out there. I sometimes read other blogs. Really good blogs sometimes can be difficult to find, but I can usually find things that are helpful to me or would be helpful to others in some way. Occasionally one has to search blog archives to come across a little helpful tidbit of information. Although this means that someone found a helpful tip, program, or other information long before I did, but who cares? The more the information gets around, the more we all benefit from it. Looking through Kathy Schrock's Blog this morning, I found an archive where ThinkFree Office Online was listed and linked. So many things to use are online and are free!!!

Image from ThinkFree Office Online

Tux Paint

I found this cute little open-source program yesterday. It's called Tux Paint. It's published under the GNU Public License and is designed for children ages 3 and up. You can download it here. It comes loaded with all of these neat little sounds that kids love.



Image from Newbreedsoftware

Blogging Bits

Went back to Stephen's blog the other day, and I noticed some things that might interest other bloggers. There is a link there to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Basically they are a group of people fighting for the rights of people in the digital world. They also have a link called The Legal Guide for Bloggers. There are many other links on this particular web page that you may find useful especially if you want to use blogging in your classroom.



Graphic from EFF

Well, I just couldn't stand it.

I'd planned to be away for awhile, visiting friends and family, but instead I've had to work a couple of days. Therefore, I thought I'd take a little time to update a couple of things on my blog.

Have you ever heard of Moodle? Moodle is an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. What is it? It is an open-source software package course management system. Simply put, you can use it to create online classes. Being open-source, it is free to distribute and use. It is copyrighted, but under the GNU Public License. This means that you can copy and use the work as long as you provide the source to others; not modify or remove the original license and copyrights, and apply this same license to any derivative work. I took an old Dell computer that was originally a 450 Mhz machine, upgraded it a few years ago with a 1 Ghz processor, recently upgraded the RAM to its max of 384 MB, downloaded easyPHP, which includes Apache web server software, PHP, and MySQL. I was completely amazed as I watched the installation work flawlessly. I basically sat back and watched. I did have to edit the config.php file eventually so it could point to an IP address on my LAN, but once I did that I created a few demo courses and logged in from each computer on my home LAN. And doggoned if it didn't work!!! I was very pleased with how simple this process was. Moodle has been compared to Blackboard and WebCT. You can Google them to see for yourself. It is supported by a variety of online users, many of which are developers themselves. You can host your own Moodle site with your own server and equipment, or you can purchase hosting services through a Moodle partner. Visit the Moodle sites and give the demo a try by clicking on the graphic below.



Graphics from Moodle

Christmas!!!!!!

Since Christmas is coming up very soon, I am going to take a break from blogging and the computer for a while. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Cooltext Logos

Need a cool logo for your site? You can create one at cooltext.com. I've made a few there myself. Click the logo below and try it.

Try Open Office

Open Office is an open source office suite that is free to download and use. It has many of the same features that you may be familiar with in other office software suites. You'll need a pretty fast connection to download it. Click on the image to download.

Beethoven's Demise?

According to studies by U.S. researchers in Illinois, it is entirely possible that the famous composer Ludwig von Beethoven may have died of lead poisoning. I've often read stories or heard from past professors that Beethoven was the moody sort, but nobody really knew why. Seems that after his death Beethoven wanted researchers to study what ailed him so others would not have to go through the same thing. By the time he wrote his 9th Symphony, he was deaf. Read the article from World Science here.

Picture from wikipedia

Wanna See A New Ocean Form?

According to an AP report by writer Anthony Mitchell, Ethiopia has a newly formed fissure that scientists believe could be the "birth of a new ocean basin." It is estimated that it will take a million years to fully form the ocean.

Link to Article

Nifty

A co-worker told me about this neat little program today. It's called CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) and it works by cleaning your computer of unnecessary and unneeded files. It works on the registry, history, and cookie files on your computer. I think I'm going to add it to my flash drive.

Get Firefox

With tabbed browsing, faster browsing, improved pop-up blocking, and an overall better Web experience, try the Firefox browser. Version 1.5 has just been released, and I really like it. You can download various themes to use, too.

Another Solar System

According to Yahoo News, another possible solar system has been discovered by astronomers.

Link to Article